Definitions of terms come from various sources, and are commonly cited in the Dictionary. Classical definitions are those of Lewis and Short, Cassell's, and Stearn. Additional important sources are Crum & Anderson, Stephani, Webster’s III, Ainsworth, and Fernald.

Abbreviations used in the text are in bold face type:

• Ainsworth, G. C. 1961. Ainsworth & Bisby's Dictionary of the Fungi. ed. 5. Commonwealth Mycological Institute, Kew, Surrey.
• Bailey, L. H. 1938. Manual of Cultivated Plants. Macmillan Company, New York.
• [B & H] Bentham G. & J.D. Hooker 1862–1883. Genera plantarum ad exemplaria imprimis in herbariis kewensibus servata definita. 3 vols. London.
• Brown, R. W. Composition of Scientific Words. 1956. Published by the author.
• Cash, E. K. 1965. A Mycological English–Latin Glossary. Hafner Publishing Company, New York.
• Cassell's Latin Dictionary, see Simpson, D. P.
• [C & A] Crum, H. A. & L. E. Anderson. 1981. Mosses of Eastern North America. Vols. 1 & 2. Columbia University Press, New York.
• Dixon, H. N. 1924. The Student's Handbook of British Mosses. ed. 3. London.
• Ehrlich, E.. 1985. A Dictionary of Latin Tags and Phrases. Robert Hale, Pub., London
• Fernald, M. L. (revised). 1950. Gray's Manual of Botany. Ed. 8. American Book Co., New York. "... my constant adviser on such matters [i.e. meanings of Latin generic and specific names], Arthur Stanley Pease, Pope Professor of the Latin Language and Literature at Harvard University, assures me that no understanding of the simplest Latin words can nowadays be assumed."
• Glare, P. G. W. 2006. Oxford Latin Dictionary. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Oxford and New York.
• Gleason, H. A. 1952. The New Britton and Brown Illustrated Flora of the Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Vol. 1. New York Botanical Garden, Hafner Press, Macmillan, New York.
• Gooder, E. A. 1978. latin for Local History: an Introduction. ed. 2. Longman Group. London and New York.
• Goodwin, W. W. 1978. A Greek Grammar, St. Martin's Press. London.
• Harris, J. G. & M. W. Harris. 2001. Plant Identification Terminology, an illustrated glossary. Ed. 2. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah
• Jackson, B. D. 1928. A Glossary of Botanic Terms. Ed. 4. Hafner Publishing Co., New York. 1960 printing.
• Jones, H. W., N. L. Hoerr & A. Osol. 1950. Blakiston's New Gould Medical Dictionary. Ed. 1. Blakiston Company, Philadelphia, Toronto.
• ICBN. International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. 2006. International Association for Plant Taxonomy (Europe). [Issued 2006, the Vienna Code, adopted in 2005.] A.R.G. Gantner Verlag KG, Liechtenstein.
• Kiger, R. W. & D. M. Porter. 2001. Categorical Glossary for the Flora of North America Project. Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation. Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh.
• Latham, R. E. 2008. Revised Medieval Latin Word-list from British and Irish Sources. Oxford University Press, London.
• Lellinger, D. B. 2002. A Modern Multilingual Glossary for Taxonomic Pteridology. Pteridologia, a publication of the American Fern Society.
• Lewis, C. T. & C. Short. 1969. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford at the Clarendon Press, Oxford.
• Liddell, H. G. & R. Scott: 1997. A Lexicon Abridged from Liddell and Scott's Greek–English Lexicon. Oxford University Press, Oxford, New York.
• Mabberley, D. J. 1987. The Plant-Book, A Portable Dictionary of the Higher Plants. Cambridge University Press, New York.
• Marchant, J. R. V. & J. F. Charles. 1887. Cassell's Latin Dictionary (Latin–English and English–Latin). Funk & Wagnalls, New York. Revised 1928.
• Miller, O. K., Jr. 1972. Mushrooms of North America. Ed. 2 Chanticleer Press, E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.
• Mitten, W. 1869. Musci Austro-Americani. enumeratio muscorum omnium Austro-Americanorum auctori hucusque cognitorum. London. Reprint Monographs in Systematic Botany from the Missouri Botanical Garden 7, 1982. Saint Louis.
• Muldoon, H. C. 1946. Lessons in Pharmaceutical Latin and Prescription Writing and Interpretation. Ed. 4. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York; Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London.
• Nicolson, D. H. 1994. Gender of generic names, particularly those ending in -ma, in the 'Names in current use' list. Taxon 43: 97–107.
• Radford, A. E., W. C. Dickison, J. R. Massey, C. R. Bell, et al. 1974. Vascular Plant Systematics. Harper & Row, New York.
• Simpson, D. P. 1968. Cassell's Latin Dictionary, Latin–English, English–Latin. Wiley Publishing, Inc., New York.
• Snell, W. D. & E. A. Dick. 1971. A Glossary of Mycology, Harvard University Press, Cambridge.
• Stace, C. A. 1989. Plant Taxonomy and Biosystematics, Ed. 2. Edward Arnold, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., London.
• Stearn, W. T. 1983. Botanical Latin. Ed. 3. David & Charles, Newton Abbot, U.K.
• Stearn, W. T. 1993. The gender of the generic name Onosma (Boraginaceae). Taxon 42: 679–681.
• Stearn, W. T. 1996. Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon.
• [Steph.] Stephani, F. 1900–1925. Species Hepaticarum. Vols. 1–6. 2005 reprint with forward by S. R. Gradstein. Bishen Singh Mahendra Pal Singh, Dehra Dun, India.
• Steyskal, G. C. 1969. The mistreatment of the Latin genitive case in forming names of parasites. Systematic Zoology 18: 339–342.
• St. John, H. & D. White. 1920. The genus Galinsoga in North America. Rhodora 22: 97–101.
• Uhl, N. W. & J. Dransfield. 1987. Genera Palmarum. L. H. Bailey Hortorium and International Palm Society. Lawrence, Kansas.
• Uphof, J. C. T. 1968. Dictionary of Economic Plants. Ed. 2. Verlag von J. Cramer, New York.
• Webster, N. 1915. Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language. Harris, W. T., editor in chief & F. S. Allen, general editor. G. & C. Merriam & Co., Springfield, Mass.
• [WIII] Webster, N. 1976. Webster's III: Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, unabridged. Philip Babcock Gove, ed. in chief. G. & C. Merriam Co., Springfield, Mass. "utilizing all the experience and resources of more than one hundred years of Merriam-Webster dictionaries."
• Wheelock, F. M. 1963. Latin, an Introductory Course Based on Ancient Authors. Ed. 3. Barnes & Noble Outline Series. Harper & Row, New York.
• Yatskievych, G. 2006. Steyermark's Flora of Missouri. Vol. 2. Missouri Botanical Garden Press, Saint Louis.
• Zabinkova, N. 1965. Generic names ending in -ma and family names derived from them. Taxon 14: 184–187
• Zijlstra, G. & J. Tolsma. 1991. (997) Proposal to conserve the spelling of (4618) Euonymus (Celastraceae). Taxon 40: 137–139.